Is the Current Administration Guided by Our Founders?

This is only one of many examples, some of which can be found within either party, of the federal government taking too much power and done so in an unconstitutional manner.

Recently, the President and Congress got together (in this case, all Democrats) and decided to exempt Congress and Congressional staff from much of what is required in the Affordable Care Act (AFA, or "Obamacare"). This is something the act seems to specifically disallow.

But more important, our government is supposed to be guided by the Constitution. And in order to truly understand the Constitution, one should also understand the Federalist Papers, which were a sort-of discussion among some Founders of what the then-upcoming Constitution should do. James Madison ("father of the Constitution") said this in Federalist 57:

"I will add, as a fifth circumstance in the situation of the House of Representatives, restraining them from oppressive measures, that they can make no law which will not have its full operation on themselves and their friends, as well as on the great mass of the society. This has always been deemed one of the strongest bonds by which human policy can connect the rulers and the people together. It creates between them that communion of interests and sympathy of sentiments, of which few governments have furnished examples; but without which every government degenerates into tyranny. If it be asked, what is to restrain the House of Representatives from making legal discriminations in favor of themselves and a particular class of the society? I answer: the genius of the whole system; the nature of just and constitutional laws; and above all, the vigilant and manly spirit which actuates the people of America -- a spirit which nourishes freedom, and in return is nourished by it." (emphasis mine)

How many of our current members of Congress and the Executive Branch have every read the Federalist Papers? How many of them refer back to those documents now and then? My estimates would be a very small number.